Osee 4:1
Hear the word of the Lord, ye children of Israel, for the Lord shall enter into judgment with the inhabitants of the land: for there is no truth, and there is no mercy, and there is no knowledge of God in the land.
Open Osee 4:1 in the Motif Searcher, word by word across all five texts →Show on the spiral →The verse in its languages
- Vulgate (Clementine)
- Audite verbum Domini, filii Israël, quia judicium Domino cum habitatoribus terræ : non est enim veritas, et non est misericordia, et non est scientia Dei in terra.
- Septuagint (Swete)
- Ἀκούσατε λόγον Κυρίου, υἱοὶ Ἰσραήλ, ὅτι κρίσις τῷ κυρίῳ πρὸς τοὺς κατοικοῦντας τὴν γῆν, διότι οὐκ ἔστιν ἀλήθεια οὐδὲ ἔλεος οὐδὲ ἐπίγνωσις θεοῦ ἐπὶ τῆς γῆς·
- Hebrew (WLC)
- שִׁמְע֥וּ דְבַר יְהוָ֖ה בְּנֵ֣י יִשְׂרָאֵ֑ל כִּ֣י רִ֤יב לַֽיהוָה֙ עִם יוֹשְׁבֵ֣י הָאָ֔רֶץ כִּ֠י אֵין אֱמֶ֧ת וְֽאֵין חֶ֛סֶד וְאֵֽין דַּ֥עַת אֱלֹהִ֖ים בָּאָֽרֶץ
Haydock's commentary
Israel. They are chiefly addressed, (Chaldean; St. Jerome; Calmet) or what follows to ver. 15, regards all. (Worthington)
Judgment. Hebrew, "a trial."
Mercy. The want of humanity and of practical knowledge is urged. (Calmet)
The knowledge of God includes the observance of the commandments, 1 John ii. 4. (Worthington)
This science alone is requisite, Jeremias ix. 3., and Isaias v. 13. Blind leaders prove their own and other's ruin.
From Haydock's Catholic Bible Commentary, 1859, in the transcription made by Todd Easton and kept online by John Paul Wohlschied at johnblood.gitlab.io/haydock.
The Fathers on this verse
St Irenaeus Against Heresies: Book I, Chapter XIX. Passages of Scripture
1. I judge it necessary to add to these details also what, by garbling passages of Scripture, they try to persuade us concerning their Propator, who was unknown to all before the coming of Christ. Their object in this is to show that our Lord announced another Father than the Maker of this universe, whom, as we said before, they impiously declare to have been the fruit of a defect. For instance, when the prophet Isaiah says, “But Israel hath not known Me, and My people have not understood Me,” they pervert his words to mean ignorance of the invisible Bythus. And that which is spoken by Hosea, “There is no truth in them, nor the knowledge of God,” they strive to give the same reference. And, “There is none that understandeth, or that seeketh after God: they have all gone out of the way, they are together become unprofitable,” they maintain to be said concerning ignorance of Bythus. …
St Cyprian Treatise V
9. And therefore with reason in these plagues that occur, there are not wanting God’s stripes and scourges; and since they are of no avail in this matter, and do not convert individuals to God by such terror of destructions, there remains after all the eternal dungeon, and the continual fire, and the everlasting punishment; nor shall the groaning of the suppliants be heard there, because here the terror of the angry God was not heard, crying by His prophet, and saying, “Hear the word of the Lord, ye children of Israel: for the judgment of the Lord is against the inhabitants of the earth; because there is neither mercy, nor truth, nor knowledge of God upon the earth. But cursing, and lying, and killing, and stealing, and committing adultery, is broken out over the land, they mingle blood with blood. …
St Cyprian Three Books of Testimonies Against the Jews, Testimony XLVII
In Hosea: “Hear ye the word of the Lord, ye children of Israel: because judgment is from the Lord against the inhabitants of the earth, because there is neither mercy nor truth, nor acknowledgment of God upon the earth; but cursing, and lying, and slaughter, and theft, and adultery is scattered abroad upon the earth: they mingle blood to blood. Therefore the land shall mourn, with all its inhabitants, with the beasts of the field, with the creeping things of the earth, with the birds of heaven; and the fishes of the sea shall fail: so that no man may judge, no man may refute.” Of this same thing in Isaiah: “Is not the Lord’s hand strong to save, or has He weighed down His ear that He may not hear? But your sins separate between you and God; and on account of your iniquities He turns away His face from you, lest He should pity. …